– Defendere bona –

About

“Traditions are answers that have been discovered to enduring questions.” – Sir Roger Scruton

Further In is a growing community of writers devoted to the celebration of permanence, tradition, and cultural renewal; to those ideas and beliefs which of their own virtue are inherently good. As the words of Saint Paul remind us, so we proclaim that whatever is true, modest, just, holy, lovely, and of good fame, if any virtue be therein found, then it is upon such things that we must dwell. Our beleaguered eyes turn in the hopes of recovering that which is good in this life. It is our hope to cultivate and encourage a thoughtful Christian community and conversation, and to engage with the deep, rich intellectual tradition of the Church in an effort to resist the downhill rush of liberalism, modernism, and ignorance that has so tarnished the Body of Christ in the world.

Further In does not seek to reinvent the cultural wheel, but rather only to remember how the wheel is and is not to be used. Here you will find original commentary on old ideas, book reviews of works spanning millennia, cultural criticism and critique, and the virtue, joy, and celebration of living a good and simple life. Our intent at the end of each day is to direct the gaze of you, our dear readers, with our own back to what is good. There is some good in this world, and it is worth fighting for.

We advocate for three simple ideas: for the good, for the beautiful, and for the true. In Ode to a Grecian Urn, the English poet Keats tells us that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Too right, and so it is. To love what is beautiful is to love what is both good and true, as all truth is good, and all that is good is true. When one understands this, any notion of or inclination towards relativism quickly fades back into the nothingness from which it came.

It is no bad thing celebrating a simple life! We hope that you enjoy all that you find on these pages, and that you may be both encouraged and challenged. Solzhenitsyn famously said, “The truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter.” We should not shy away from that which is uncomfortable if there is even a grain of truth to be found therein. As C.S. Lewis writes in the concluding moments of his Narnian chronicles, so we declare: “Come further up! Come further in!”

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What is Further In?

Further In is an independent journal of contemporary thought about very old ideas. We are dedicated to the good, the beautiful, and the true, to exploring matters of culture, liberal learning, moral imagination, faith and reason, science, literature, the arts, history, and simple living. We hope to contribute in our own small way to, as Eliot phrased it, "the redemption of the time." Thus we offer a "politics" of faith, hope, love, grace, gratitude, prayer, and simplicity.